Book picks similar to
The Wedding Day by Catherine Alliott
chick-lit
fiction
romance
chicklit
How to Bake a Perfect Life
Barbara O'Neal - 2010
Professional baker Ramona Gallagher is a master of an art that has sustained her through the most turbulent times, including a baby at fifteen and an endless family feud. But now Ramona’s bakery threatens to crumble around her. Literally. She’s one water-heater disaster away from losing her grandmother’s rambling Victorian and everything she’s worked so hard to build.When Ramona’s soldier son-in-law is wounded in Afghanistan, her daughter, Sophia, races overseas to be at his side, leaving Ramona as the only suitable guardian for Sophia’s thirteen-year-old stepdaughter, Katie. Heartbroken, Katie feels that she’s being dumped again—this time on the doorstep of a woman out of practice with mothering.Ramona relies upon a special set of tools—patience, persistence, and the reliability of a good recipe—when rebellious Katie arrives. And as she relives her own history of difficult choices, Ramona shares her love of baking with the troubled girl. Slowly, Katie begins to find self-acceptance and a place to call home. And when a man from her past returns to offer a second chance at love, Ramona discovers that even the best recipe tastes better when you add time, care, and a few secret ingredients of your own.
The Versions of Us
Laura Barnett - 2015
One Day meets Sliding Doors in this outstanding debut that is causing a buzz across the publishing worldSome moments can change your life for ever. Have you ever wondered, what if...?A man is walking down a country lane. A woman, cycling towards him, swerves to avoid a dog. On that moment, their future hinges. There are three possible outcomes, three small decisions that could determine the rest of their life.Eva and Jim are nineteen and students at Cambridge when their paths first cross in 1958. And then there is David, Eva's then-lover, an ambitious actor who loves Eva deeply. The Versions of Us follows the three different courses their lives could take following this first meeting. Lives filled with love, betrayal, ambition but through it all is a deep connection that endures whatever fate might throw at them.The Versions of Us explores the idea that there are moments when our lives might have turned out differently, the tiny factors or decisions that could determine our fate, and the precarious nature of the foundations upon which we build our lives. It is also a story about the nature of love and how it grows, changes and evolves as we go through the vagaries of life.
Wilde Like Me
Louise Pentland - 2017
She has a wonderful best friend and an auntie who is bonkers, yes, but loves her to the moon and back. But Robin has a secret. Behind the mask she carefully applies every day, things just feel ... grey. And lonely. She struggles to fit in with the school mum crew. Online dating is totally despair-inducing, and she worries every day about raising her little girl with self-confidence, courage and joy.What Robin longs for is someone (over the age of six) to share with - someone who's always on her team. After 4 years (2 months, and 15 days!) of single-mum-dom, it's time for Robin Wilde to Change. Her. Life. Exciting new opportunities are about to come Robin's way ... Perhaps a man, perhaps the chance of a lifetime ...What will Robin do with the possibilities she creates for herself? And what potential will she unlock if she takes the leap?
Promises, Promises
Patricia Scanlan - 1997
The saying "love is blind" could have been invented for the wayward Ellen, whose life changes for ever when she leaves the ebony darkness and winding country roads of Glenree for the bright lights of the city. It is there she falls in love with Chris Wallace, a skunk of the highest order. A tale of love and heartbreak, laughter and tears, this is a moving novel will strike a chord with anyone who has loved a scoundrel.
Say When
Elizabeth Berg - 2003
The coffeemaker beeped, signalling its readiness, and Ellen got up and poured two mugs. She set one in front of Griffin, one in front of herself. Griffin watched the steam rise up and curl back on itself, then dissipate. He said quietly, "I'm not going anywhere." "Pardon?" "I said, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not moving." She nodded. "I see. Well, I can't. I have to be here to take care of Zoe." Griffin pictured his daughter, a redheaded beauty who would knock the stuffing out of any man who crossed her. "All right, you can stay, too," he told Ellen. "Griffin. One of us has to go." In Say When, Elizabeth Berg negotiates perfectly the fine balance between humour and poignancy as she charts the days and nights of a family whose normal life has been shattered. Told from the point of view of a man who goes overnight from being a husband to becoming his wife's roommate, this is a gripping and heartfelt story.
How to Walk Away
Katherine Center - 2018
Then, suddenly, on what should have been one of the happiest days of her life, everything she worked for is taken away in one tumultuous moment. In the hospital and forced to face the possibility that nothing will ever be the same again, Margaret must figure out how to move forward on her own terms while facing long-held family secrets, devastating heartbreak, and the idea that love might find her in the last place she would ever expect.
Vision in White
Nora Roberts - 2009
Her father replaced his first family with a second, and now her mother, moving on to yet another man, begs Mac for attention and money. Mac's foundation is jostled again moments before an important wedding planning meeting when she bumps into the bride-to-be's brother...an encounter that has them both seeing stars.Carter Maguire is definitely not her type: he's stable, and he's safe. He's even an English teacher at their high school alma mater. There's something about him that makes Mac think a casual fling is just what she needs to take her mind off dealing with bridezillas and screening her mother's phone calls. But a casual fling can turn into something more when you least expect it. And with the help of her three best friends—and business partners—Mac must learn how to make her own happy memories.
Nantucket Nights
Elin Hilderbrand - 2002
Once a year, the old friends put aside their daily, separate lives to drink champagne, swap stories and swim naked under the Nantucket stars. But on one of those bonding nights, one of their trio swims out from the shore and doesn't return. After the surviving friends emerge from their grief, they realize that the repercussions of their loss go far beyond their little circle, and they begin to uncover layers of secrets--and their connections to each other--that were never revealed on the beach. What has made their friendship strong now has the power to destroy--their marriages, families, even themselves, in Elin Hilderbrand's Nantucket Nights.
The Italian Girl
Lucinda Riley - 1996
In the years to come, their destinies are bound together by their extraordinary talents as opera singers and by their enduring but obsessive love for each other - a love that will ultimately affect the lives of all those closest to them. For, as Rosanna slowly discovers, their union is haunted by powerful secrets from the past . . . Rosanna's journey takes her from humble beginnings in the back streets of Naples to the glittering stages of the world's most prestigious opera houses. Set against a dazzling backdrop of evocative locations, The Italian Girl unfolds into a poignant and unforgettable tale of love, betrayal and self-discovery. From the international bestselling author of Hothouse Flower and The Midnight Rose comes The Italian Girl - first published as Aria under the name Lucinda Edmonds.
The Switch
Beth O'Leary - 2020
Eileen is newly single and about to turn eighty. She'd like a second chance at love, but her tiny Yorkshire village doesn't offer many eligible gentlemen.Once Leena learns of Eileen's romantic predicament, she proposes a solution: a two-month swap. Eileen can live in London and look for love. Meanwhile Leena will look after everything in rural Yorkshire. But with gossiping neighbours and difficult family dynamics to navigate up north, and trendy London flatmates and online dating to contend with in the city, stepping into one another's shoes proves more difficult than either of them expected.Leena learns that a long-distance relationship isn't as romantic as she hoped it would be, and then there is the annoyingly perfect - and distractingly handsome - school teacher, who keeps showing up to outdo her efforts to impress the local villagers. Back in London, Eileen is a huge hit with her new neighbours, but is her perfect match nearer home than she first thought?
Elegance
Kathleen Tessaro - 2003
wants what Jackie O had ...Unhappy with her looks, her life, and her empty marriage, Louise Canova needs help -- and she finds it in a secondhand bookstore. A forty-year-old encyclopedia of style titled Elegance, this slim volume by formidable French fashion expert Madame Dariaux promises to transform even the plainest of women into creatures of poise and grace. It is a fairy godmother in print, an A-to-Z manual with essential advice that Louise vows to take to heart. But within its pages lie not only clues from her past, but also powerful lessons for the future. And as the old Louise gives way to the stunning new, she's about to find out that there's more to every life than what appears on the surface ... and that everything, even elegance, has its price.
Something Like Happy
Eva Woods - 2017
You're just meant to do one thing every day that makes you happy. Could be little things. Could be big. In fact, we're doing one right now…”Annie Hebden is stuck. Stuck in her boring job, with her irritating roommate, in a life no thirty-five-year-old would want. But deep down, Annie is still mourning the terrible loss that tore a hole through the perfect existence she'd once taken for granted—and hiding away is safer than remembering what used to be. Until she meets the eccentric Polly Leonard.Bright, bubbly, intrusive Polly is everything Annie doesn't want in a friend. But Polly is determined to finally wake Annie up to life. Because if recent events have taught Polly anything, it's that your time is too short to waste a single day—which is why she wants Annie to join her on a mission…One hundred days. One hundred new ways to be happy. Annie's convinced it's impossible, but so is saying no to Polly. And on an unforgettable journey that will force her to open herself to new experiences—and perhaps even new love with the unlikeliest of men—Annie will slowly begin to realize that maybe, just maybe, there's still joy to be found in the world. But then it becomes clear that Polly's about to need her new friend more than ever…and Annie will have to decide once and for all whether letting others in is a risk worth taking."Simply irresistible!" -Library Journal “A special book that will make you laugh through your tears with its heartfelt take on happiness and friendship.”—Amy E. Reichert, author of The Coincidence of Coconut Cake
Miss You
Kate Eberlen - 2016
They just haven't met properly yet. And perhaps they never will . . . Today is the first day of the rest of your life is the motto on a plate in the kitchen at home, and Tess can't get it out of her head, even though she's in Florence for a final, idyllic holiday before university. Her life is about to change forever - but not in the way she expects. Gus and his parents are also on holiday in Florence. Their lives have already changed suddenly and dramatically. Gus tries to be a dutiful son, but longs to escape and discover what sort of person he is going to be. For one day, the paths of an eighteen-year-old girl and boy criss-cross before they each return to England.Over the course of the next sixteen years, life and love will offer them very different challenges. Separated by distance and fate, there's no way the two of them are ever going to meet each other properly . . . or is there?
The Inn at Eagle Point
Sherryl Woods - 2009
Original.It's been years since Abby O'Brien Winters set foot in Chesapeake Shores. The Maryland town her father built has too many sad memories and Abby too few spare moments, thanks to her demanding Wall Street career, the crumbling of her marriage and energetic twin daughters. Then one panicked phone call from her youngest sister brings her racing back home to protect Jess's dream of renovating the charming Inn at Eagle Point.But saving the inn from foreclosure means dealing not only with her own fractured family, but also with Trace Riley, the man Abby left ten years ago. Trace can be a roadblock to her plans...or proof that second chances happen in the most unexpected ways.
Keeper of the Light
Diane Chamberlain - 1992
Olivia Simon is on duty in the emergency room of North Carolina’s Outer Banks Hospital when a gunshot victim is brought in. Midway through the desperate effort to save the young woman’s life, Olivia realizes who she is—Annie O’Neill. The woman Olivia’s husband, Paul, is in love with.When Annie dies on the operating table, she leaves behind three other victims. Alec O’Neill, who thought he had the perfect marriage. Paul, whose fixation on Annie is unshakable. And Olivia, who is desperate to understand the woman who destroyed her marriage.Now they are left with unanswered questions about who Annie really was. And about the secrets she kept hidden so well.Originally published in 2011